India’s largest sports library needs a turnaround

The Dr HG Kanga Memorial Library still boasts an incredible catalogue, including a full set of Wisden Almanacks from 1864; and in March 1975, the library was relocated to the ground floor of the Garware Club House of the Wankhede Stadium (right). (Photos via Wikimedia Commons)

Dr H.D. Kanga Memorial Library may not be the only Indian sports library. However, there is little doubt that it boasts of the largest collection of sports books in India, perhaps even Asia.

But the legacy of the Kanga Library stretches beyond that. Even today, when one can order books – even from overseas – at the tap of a button and read on handheld devices, some copies remain elusive. They might have gone out of print; the second-hand copies might not ship to India; or they might just be too expensive.

Libraries used to address this at one point, as they still do for readers and researchers. But the Kanga Library did something more. In his column in Mid-Day, sports writer Clayton Murzello noted that “on non-match days, the only way a common man could get access to the Wankhede Stadium’s cricketing premises was through a visit to the Kanga Library. It welcomed everybody.”

The Wankhede Stadium was, of course, not the first home the Kanga Library had. Dr H.D. Kanga, the first great Parsee cricketer of the 20th century, passed away on December 29, 1945. “Exactly a year after” that day, “friends and well-wishers” initiated a fund.

Various sports clubs and patrons – including Test cricketers K.S. Duleepsinhji, Vijay Merchant, and Pheroze Palia and BCCI president Anthony de Mello – contributed towards the eventual sum of Rs 9,619.

Merchant, still an active Test cricketer, was part of the committee that sanctioned Rs 6,500 to purchase books and periodicals to start a library named after Dr Kanga. This was in May 1950, two years after the Kanga Cricket League – it will not be an exaggeration to call it Merchant’s brainchild – had been underway.

The library was inaugurated on December 13 that year, in a space that used to be a dormitory at the north-west corner of the Brabourne Stadium. It began with 700 books, and the collection grew rapidly over the years, as did the count of eighty-two “ordinary” members in the inaugural year.

The initial fees – a Rs 10 deposit, Rs 5 for entrance, Rs 2 for quarterly subscription – did not change until June 1972. The library remained accessible to all.

Merchant, of course, was part of the board of management, as was venerable cricket statistician Anandji Dossa. Merchant donated his entire collection to the library, and obtained the best books from around the world.

Secretary and treasurer H.N. Contractor emerged as the driving force of the library in its early years. “Every morning Contractor would be at the library as if a matter of ritual, doing the job of a clerk cum librarian cum accountant,” noted Theo Braganza, owner of Marine Sports, the sports-only bookshop in Dadar and a key figure of the library.

By 1960, the library had 3,422 books and 334 members. One of them was Dicky Rutnagur, then editor of Indian Cricket Field Annual. In the 1960s, cricket statistician Sudhir Vaidya obtained Contractor’s permission to use the library after hours: he would return the keys to Rosario Rodrigues, the librarian.

In March 1975, the library was relocated to the ground floor of the Garware Club House of the Wankhede Stadium, the new home of Bombay Cricket. In 1995, a wing was set up in the suburb of Mulund.

The decline

Despite the obvious developments, the officials noticed a “fall in readership” in the 1990s. Interest dwindled, particularly for books outside cricket, chess, bridge, and football.

There were other problems too. The library personnel had been undergoing constant change, as a result of which, to quote Braganza, “the staff employed had no library background nor knowledge of managing a library and worst of all were just not fond of books or reading.” It was around this time that several books were destroyed, stolen, or not returned by members.

The library still boasts an incredible catalogue, including a full set of Wisden Almanacks from 1864; the Indian Cricket Almanacks from 1946/47; “all the annuals” from most major cricket-playing nations; most Olympic reports; the complete sets of most magazines across sports; and much more – in multiple languages.

Yet, there is much more to a successful library than acquiring an incredible collection of books from around the world. In April 2013, Mid-Day ran a report by Murzello on the abysmal condition of the Wisden Almanacks here.

“The cupboard for the Wisdens was an embedded cupboard, inside the wall – and that wall was exposed to rain,” Murzello, a life member of the library since the mid-1980s, told me.

This did not go down well with the members, whose initial reaction revolved around the fact that a reporter had clicked photographs inside the library. “I heard they wanted to discontinue my membership,” Murzello added.

Yet, when the library sought the help of pest control services, they also reached out to Murzello for advice on preservation. The almanacks were duly relocated to a steel cupboard, but the other books were not as fortunate.

Braganza voiced his sentiments, of being “almost in tears to see the state of these precious books, most of with are irreplaceable, and to turn into a junk of books and paper.”

The renovation of the Wankhede Stadium had led to the books being shunted to a corner of a press conference room. “I am told some books are in cupboards, some books are in kitbags,” lamented Murzello. “Now they are waiting to get space to resume the library, which I hope they will.”

In the 2010s, there was an initiative towards digitization, but there has been no relevant update. The books exist – irrespective of condition – but there is no library to go to.

“The library has not been set up,” concluded Murzello. “They have a responsibility towards the members, but no one is talking about it.”

Right now, all we can do is hope for Asia’s biggest sports library to return to its pomp.